by Luke Norris
Oliver trudged along the river bank behind the others. Yes, there was an unmistakable distant roar. Wind gusts were washing over them and the noise increased. A few at the front started jogging. They could see in the dim light the plateau ahead coming to an end. They knew their fate would be decided with what lay beyond. They were at the end of their reserves.
Oliver glanced back over his shoulder and saw daylight sweeping down the giant peaks as the sun rose over the moon. The great blanket of shadow was being pulled back across the canyons and jungle. In a heartbeat, the light washed over them. He closed his eyes to absorb the warmth for a moment then opened them and turned to watch the trail of the golden wall as it carried on past.
What he saw left him awestruck. It had been dark when he walked to the plateau edge. Now, in the milky light, he could see how the landscape opened abruptly under him. It was the most breathtaking panoramic view he had ever seen.
The plateau fell away below them, with a near sheer drop of at least a kilometer. To his left, the shelf they were on stretched away into the distance. Titanic grey cliff faces with the thin green line of jungle foliage lining the top. The river was now an enormous torrent of water that stretched out eight hundred meters across. It was as smooth as glass right up until the edge, where it left the plateau and shot out into space. The gushing deluge quickly changed trajectory, to tumble straight down from dizzying heights, creating a majestic waterfall. It was a rippling silk sheet stirring the deep pools below.
The company lined the ridge one by one, beholding the spectacle before them. As the sun rose higher over the moon, the golden wall of light sped across the land before him, forcing itself into every corner, uncovering its secrets. Oliver let out a whoop despite the pain. They had spent a week walking in those chasms and gorges, hemmed in by the canyon walls. Suddenly his soul was freed from that claustrophobic prison. Rolling foothills stretched for hundreds of kilometers. Now the countryside that stretched out before them was completely bathed in light. The eclipse was over.
“Look there!” Cass exclaimed. “That hill has hundreds of terraces on it, and they’ve been farmed!”
It was true! Oliver could see it. Green terraces were covering several hills in the distance, it was clear that it had been cultivated. A thin tendril of smoke rose from behind one of the hills. Final undeniable confirmation of human habitation.
“We’re saved!” Cass shrieked.
Most of the troop were sharing the excitement on the ridge of the plateau shelf. They were exhausted and had stomach cramps from hunger, but they had something else now, something that had been nearly whittled away. Hope.
Crow was standing back and appeared more disengaged from his surroundings and the group than normal. Oliver watched Crow and could see him looking out in the same direction as the others, but his eyes were despondent. His eyes reflected something different. They reflected a thousand battles he had fought, a thousand atrocities he had been forced to commit as a driver, the faintest ancient memory of a family and perhaps even love that had been robbed from him centuries ago. He was standing on the crest of the ridge. Suddenly he turned to the others completely lucid. He focused on them as if seeing them for the first time. In his moment of clarity, he spoke three words. Alien words. They were words from a dead world, his world, that had been destroyed by pirates. He turned back and dropped over the edge. The roar of the falls swallowed Verity's scream.
Cass's smile didn't drop for one second, the scar stretched, exposing his top gums on one side of his mouth. He turned back to enjoy the vista. Is that the callus sensibility of a driver, or something more? Oliver thought. And why was Verity acting dismayed? If she is pretending to be a driver, that’s not how one would act.
They decided to camp on the plateau, sleep there for the night, and attempt a descent from the shelf in the morning. Everybody was physically depleted and Crow’s suicide added to the mental exhaustion. There was no campfire without a blaster to ignite one, so Oliver lay against the huddle of bodies to fight the night cold.
14. Quiet conversations
While the drivers slept, a quiet conversation was taking place.
“At the speed we’re traveling at, " Cass said, "I estimate we’re still two, maybe three days march to those farms.”
“Well, we need to get there as quick as possible,” Captain Yarn replied. “We've got no food now because we have nothing to shoot with. Oh yea, and Cass what was that garbage about the water getting into the blaster? Why did you lie? Water doesn't affect those, you know it simply needs charging.”
“Yes, I know that! But we can't charge it obviously, so it’s as good as dead. I told them it must be water damage because if I demonstrate knowledge about the blaster, they will know I didn't steal it from our captors. They will suspect me of being one of them...smart thinking, right?” The mercenaries teeth flashed under his scar.
“You fool!” Sergeant Costa said. “Those are drivers! They know these weapons inside out. They are issued with these kind of weapons when we deploy them from the mothership in the landing craft. They sure as hell know that water doesn't affect them. You'd better hope they have magically forgotten and that didn't raise suspicions.”
Cass looked thoughtful. “None of these drivers are any wiser to who we are! They are just hungry and thinking about survival!”
“Maybe,” Costa sounded dubious. “Where’s the lieutenant gone? What’s Shira doing?”
“Both the women are sleeping,” Yarn said. “In fact, we should get to sleep too, we have to make the descent tomorrow. It will be dangerous. We need to be well rested. I think we can all slow our bodies tonight, no need for a watch. Those men are at the point of exhaustion!”
The second-stagers quietly made their way back over to the group that were sleeping in a large huddle. Confident that their secret meeting had gone unheard, they hunkered down and closed their eyes. After a few minutes of shuffling to get comfortable the sound of deep slow breaths could be heard, men utterly exhausted falling into a deep sleep.
In the dark, Oliver's eyes opened, as he lay still on his side. The green and undulating red lights that flickered in the alien night sky, reflected in his eyes like burning green fire, intense, ferocious and vengeful.
15. Dead of Night
The shrill scream cut the air so loud that it tore Costa out of his exhausted sleep, forcing him to sift through the chaos of the last few days and get his bearings. It took him a few moments to bring his body back up to standard speed. The scream had subsided to whimpering with intermittent heaving sobs by the time he had gained his wits. Costa cocked himself up on one elbow and immediately felt the pain of his tired muscles from the torturous expedition they had made from the landing craft.
Costa liked to have control of a situation. In all the years he had been an early trader with Yarn he took pride in keeping a cool head, sifting logically through solutions to implement a decisive course of action. The captain wouldn’t be able to execute half of his go-lucky schemes without Costa. He felt far from in control right now. They had never encountered sabotage to this level, and the danger was very real.
Costa looked up. The dawn sky shone through a deep gash on the horizon, the orange light had congealed on the bulky cumulus cloud formation stacked up high above the plateau where that lay, billowing, bulging and satin, only dwarfed by the impossible black peaks behind them which pierced the canopy of space itself.
Did I imagine that scream? Costa's mind reeled under the fog of sleep. He realized the culprit was lying two people away. Verity’s brown eyes were wide, and she had a hand over her mouth. An occasional whimper escaped through her delicate fingers. Damn it girl what's the meaning...His thoughts were abruptly cut short as he followed Verity's horrified stare to the sleeper that lay between them. Cass lay there already awake on his back, unblinking eyes watching the clouds lined in maroon above him. Costa noticed the small line of blood running from the corner of the big man’s mouth. His white, bloodless lips didn't move as a fly landed on them
and then made its way curiously inside his mouth to inspect. Then he saw it, a wooden stake protruding half a meter from Cass's chest above his heart.
"Aargh." Costa reeled back and scrambled to his feet. He had been sleeping against the body of Cass. Someone had done this only a foot from where he lay. With his body operating in slow-time as he slept, he’d been oblivious. God that was close! The mercenary was not the most intelligent man and probably had it coming. That hot-head made enemies inside of a couple of weeks. But still, this was too close for comfort.
The camp was soon chaos. All the drivers were awake and formed an amphitheater of irate onlookers around the gruesome scene.
Verity had left the horrible sight and was sitting by the cliff edge looking out over the foothills. Costa watched her disapprovingly. Verity is too soft, Costa thought to himself, and she is letting it show.
“He had it coming!” Yarn declared. “Who did us the honor?” He scanned the men carefully.
“What are you talking about? There's a murderer in our midst.” Ponsy said, his deep voice holding a tone of accusation towards Yarn.
Costa scoured the suspects. There were only four drivers left, the injured Cougar, Ponsy, Drake, and lastly, his penetrating blue eyes came to rest on Jerome. Yes, that man already had several run-ins with the mercenary. His thick black brow furrowed. “Can we all expect a stake through the heart in our sleep, Jerome?”
“Mind what you say, if I were you!” Jerome's broad shoulders trembled.
Accusations flew, arguments and defenses went on for an hour. Clearly, nobody was owning up to the murder and they were already on the verge of mental and emotional breaking point, this was pushing them over the edge.
“We need to get to the farms!” Yarn said, “we are nearly there. Let’s focus on getting there. We are not thinking straight. If we stay here we are all going to die anyway!”
“I agree,” Cougar said. He was leaning heavily on the makeshift crutch that Ponsy had fashioned for him. The infection had worsened, the affliction was clearly not localized to the cut on his leg anymore. His face was pale, and small beads of sweat were on his brow.
“Yea, I think that’s a good idea.” Riff’s fidgety eyes were constantly darting to Cass on the ground.
“Please, let’s just leave this place,” Verity said, walking back with Shira. “I can't stay here.”
Costa felt less in control than ever. Half of the drivers were hell-bent on uncovering the secret murderer, the other half seemed to think Cass had it coming and it was just a matter of time. Their driver instincts allowed them to detach themselves from the horror, making their reactions impossible to judge. He had to regain control of the situation. He would take out the rogue driver. Yes, that was what he had to do! He watched Jerome as the man helped Cougar with his crutch.
Nevertheless, Costa was happy when they broke camp, there was so much tension around Cass' murder that nobody wanted to be seen in alliance with the dead driver. They all remained silent about the fact that Cass's corpse lay beside them. In the end, his body was left where it lay, no burial or cremation was suggested, or even to put his body in the river. Nobody bothered taking the spent blaster from the dead man’s jumpsuit.
When they finally found a broken game trail leading off the plateau ridge, it had started to drizzle. Gusts of wind sporadically swept up the thousand meter stone wall, blowing the rain in Costa’s face. The angle of the impossibly high rock wall caused the wind to dance up the face in low guttural calls of some great instrument. As the rain increased, it heeded every desire and whim of the gale. It defied gravity to fall upwards and sideways, but mostly in the eyes of the remaining ten dispirited castaways ambling down the wall. The grey rock face was streaked with huge veins of the same black granite ore as the mountains behind them.
The drivers had long discarded the thin white helmets issued with the jumpsuits. Costa had retained his, and he donned it now to muffle the billowing gale against his eardrums. He glanced back up the treacherous path to see the others spread thinly across the path edging their way down. To add to the barrage of wind, the rain had increased to thick droplets pelting his eyes.
The rain was forming a small stream and guttering against the trail and the wall. Sometimes the water was dammed by a rock, or soil, and deflected across the path in a splaying stream cascading off the other side to be dispersed by the wind. This is perilously narrow. Those blasted mountain goats walk on air. Costa made a small leap over a two-foot gap in the path where the water had eroded the outside edge away to leave a dangerously steep scree in its place. He was forced to edge along sideways several meters, both hands sliding along the cliff face for balance.
Costa turned back to watch the grey figures in the rain. The tall limping figure of the driver called Cougar stumbled and released his wooden crutch to catch himself against the unmistakable bulk of Jerome. Cougar’s walking stick went cartwheeling off the side and was swallowed by wind and rain in the abyss. It will be a damn miracle if any of us make it out of here!
*
“What the hell does this mean?” the lieutenant yelled. Her voice disappeared almost instantly on the wind and blended into the fracas of the weather that was battering them against the cliff face. Only Yarn directly in front of her could make out the words.
“What does what mean?” replied the captain.
“The mercenary! Cass! Somebody knew, and took him out! Somebody knew he was one of us!” she paused. “He was too condescending. He couldn't help talking to them like first-stagers, treating them second class. It was a dead give away he was a second-stager. One of the drivers is on to us.”
“No, I doubt it.”
What?” The lieutenant shouted above the din.
“He made enemies because he was insolent to the drivers,” Yarn had to shout. “Unfortunately for him, he made enemies of trained killers. That's why he got a stake through the heart. It’s not connected to his second-stage status. Nobody here suspects our true identity.”
“I'm not convinced,” Shira yelled in his ear. “I think we need to act! We don't need them anymore. They are nothing but dogs! Have you seen the way they have been treating Verity and me? Those first-stage scum!” she spat. “They have no respect for women. They’re animals!”
“We still need them, Shira,” Yarn said. A wolfish smile crept up under his one-week old stubble. All the drivers were sporting short beards now which made the presence of women in the group even more pronounced. Yarn bent over to the tall woman and stole a kiss, a cheeky thing, the rain pelted their faces and water streamed over his thin, smiling eyes just inches from her face. “Have I ever let you down, darling?”
“Damn you, Yarn! This is getting serious with these drivers, and I don't like it,” she said, not completely immune to her man’s charms.
“Don't forget we still outnumber the drivers,” Yarn said.
“You can't count the girl,” Shira said. “She wouldn't know how to handle herself against the drivers. Earth was her first time on a muster.” A planet raid that we should never have done, it was way too hot on that planet, she thought bitterly.
They could see several grey figures of drivers in the rain in front of them. The men were spread thinly over the trail, as it disappeared around one of the towering ridges, like a curtain fold running down the face.
“Sergeant!” Captain Yarn called ahead. “Sergeant!”
Finally, Costa heard the call, turned and waited. His blue eyes reflected the grey storm under his thick wet brow. “This is hardly a trail, and look!” Costa pointed to streams of water ruthlessly eroding precious footholds. “Soon there won't be much of a trail left at all.”
“The lieutenant thinks the mercenary’s murder was targeted,” Yarn said. “She thinks one of the drivers is onto us,” he grimaced as water stung his eyes.
“Mmm,” the sergeant’s brow furrowed in concentration. “It's unlikely,” he shouted back, “but I've heard a few comments from the bull-man, Jerome. I've got my eye on hi
m, and I’ll take him out if he becomes a problem. I think the mercenaries death was just a trivial vendetta from one of the drivers he rubbed the wrong way. They were probably just waiting for him to lose the blaster gun before making their move. It was just a matter of time.” Costa symbolically flicked his forefinger from his thumb out over the void. “You did warn him to keep his head down captain.”
“I did! That is true!” Yarn gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Out of my way! I have lady business to take care of,” Shira said.
“Let those last two drivers pass first,” Costa said, indicating to Jerome and Cougar.
Once Shira was at the back of the entourage she pulled several leaves out of her jumpsuit and started the business of changing the old ones. The bleeding had only been light, not requiring much rearranging. Nevertheless, it was difficult to maneuver on the narrow goat track, and being distracted by a howling storm didn’t speed things up. She spent several minutes replacing the leaves. When she had finished, she carried on to catch the last dwindling grey figure of the procession.
16. Shira’s prey
Oliver let Jerome help him across an eroded portion of the path.
“I'm telling you Cougar, he's one of them!” Jerome dropped his voice and leaned his huge frame in conspiratorially. “It is us and them.”
The two drivers were not speaking the command language, they reverted to English when they were together.
Oliver gripped Jerome’s hand a moment longer in agreement. His tall, wiry frame was hunched from exhaustion. This damn infection was ravaging him. Surely this kind of infection would have been deadly on Earth. Had Lego boosted his immune system somehow? Was it nanotechnology? Lego had explained some things to him. His body felt different that was for sure! Who knows? Anything was possible in the crazy world he found himself in. He rubbed the dark stubble on his jaw, it was starting to itch. His cheeks felt gaunt. He noticed Jerome's dark cannonball head distinctly lacked facial hair. He had a shadow of stubble under his broad flat nose but only wisps on his chin and cheeks despite being nearly middle aged.
